LEGAL AID OF NORTH CAROLINA INC

The Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Project (DVSAP) is a statewide project that provides legal assistance to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking. DVSAP advocates are trained to keep victims safe and empower them to become self-sufficient so they can live independently from their abusers.

DVSAP advocates work closely with community-based programs, agencies, and task forces serving victims of domestic and sexual violence. The DVSAP has existing formal collaborative agreements and referral protocols with more than 75 local organizations.

DVSAP receives funding from the NC Governors Crime Commission, NC Council for Women and Youth Involvement, and the State of North Carolina.

The DVSAP also works closely with Immigration Pathways for Victims, which provides comprehensive and culturally appropriate legal services to immigrant survivors of violence needing assistance with immigration.

The Fair Housing Project works to eliminate housing discrimination and to ensure equal housing opportunity for all people in North Carolina.

• Providing education and outreach to residents, advocates, and service providers throughout North Carolina
• Offering legal representation to individuals who have been discriminated against
• Conducting research into fair housing
• Conducting fair housing testing to determine possible discrimination based on race, disability, familial status, and other grounds

The Fair Housing Project provides services to members of all protected classes, with special emphasis upon underserved areas and populations including immigrants; residents who are non-English speaking or have limited English proficiency; rural residents; persons with disabilities; homeless individuals; and persons residing in areas with large concentrations of people of color. Visit us at FairHousingNC.org.

The Farmworker Unit (FWU) is a statewide project that serves migrant farmworkers. Although farmworkers do very hard work and although without their labor we would not have the abundant food we do, they often struggle just to earn enough to feed and clothe their families. North Carolina has the 5th or 6th largest population of farmworkers in the United States and the largest number of farmworkers who come to the United States on temporary visas to do farmwork.

FWU seeks to increase the level of socioeconomic integration of migrant farm workers to ensure full participation in society. We work toward this goal by protecting and enforcing the employment and civil rights of migrant workers and by protecting and enforcing the contractual and statutory obligations under H2-A worker contracts and other legal rights of H-2A workers. Our hope is to ensure that migrant workers are afforded equal opportunity to live and work safely, and in accordance with federal, state and international law.

The Economic Justice Initiatve (EJI) strives to keep working poor and working families in possession of their homes and home equity.

By providing high-quality legal representation in foreclosure actions, the EJI saves homes, preserves credit ratings and strives to make prohibitive the cost of conducting business for unscrupulous brokers and lenders. The EJI also provides community education to increase awareness of home-finance best practices and the dangers of predatory lending.

The EJI collaborates with six other legal services organizations to form the Home Defense Project (HDP). The HDP saves homes and reduces foreclosures in North Carolina by securing loan modifications for borrowers and providing high-quality foreclosure-defense work in every county in the state. The HDP is funded in part by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation​.

The Senior Law Project provides free civil legal help to North Carolinians who are 60 years of age or older. Priority is given to those with the greatest need.

The Senior Law Project helps with wills, powers of attorney, public benefits (Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income Program, Social Security Disability Insurance, etc.), abuse and neglect, unemployment compensation, housing (foreclosure, eviction, subsidized housing, repairs, utilities, etc.), consumer issues and wrongful repossession.

The Senior Law Project operates our Senior Legal Helpline, a toll-free hotline available for seniors across the state.

The Veterans Law Project is a special, statewide unit that helps low-income veterans overcome service-related legal barriers that prevent them from living self-sufficiently and seeking economic opportunity.

We focus our advocacy on cases that can have a serious impact on a veteran's ability to find work, secure housing, and establish economic stability. Areas of practice include disability compensation, discharge upgrades, pension benefits, and Veterans Administration overpayments.

Veterans must be at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines to be eligible for help. We prioritize clients who are homeless or facing homelessness. Facing homelessness can mean couch-surfing, being behind on rent and threatened with eviction, being behind on mortgage payments and facing foreclosure, and more.

The Disaster Relief Project provides legal assistance and education to survivors of natural disasters in North Carolina and supports community economic development and equitable long-term recovery and resiliency in disaster-impacted communities. 

The Disaster Relief Project’s services include:
• Providing disaster survivors with information about their rights
• Advocating for clients when they are applying for recovery fund assistance and appealing decisions
• Standing up for disaster survivors who were victimized by fraudulent contractors or bad-actor landlords
• Connecting clients to community resources
• Clarifying title and property ownership, including providing wills and advanced directives for those who have been affected by a natural disaster
• Supporting local long-term disaster recovery organizations by writing bylaws, providing document templates, and helping groups incorporate as 501(c)(3) nonprofits
• Hosting disaster recovery education sessions and legal clinic

The Medicaid Appeals Technical Team (MATT) serves the legal needs of the 1.7 million Medicaid beneficiaries in North Carolina who have been enrolled into Prepaid Health Plans during the State’s transition from a fee-for-service model of healthcare delivery to a capitated managed care model.

MATT’s inaugural work during 2021-2022 was funded by grants from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust. MATT works collaboratively with our legal and community partners in North Carolina and nationally to achieve our goals:
• Enforcing Medicaid beneficiaries’ rights
• Monitoring systemic issues to insure that the interests of beneficiaries are centered in the State’s transition to managed care
• Educating community partners about beneficiary rights
• Bringing a health justice and equity lens to our legal advocacy, especially to address systemic barriers created by structural racism and other forms of oppression

Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) project brings together physicians, nurses, social workers, attorneys and paralegals to address social and environmental determinants of poor health that may have a legal remedy, including: substandard housing conditions; domestic violence; food, income, and housing insecurity; improper denials of Medicaid and disability benefits; and failure to provide children with the special educational services to which they are entitled.

Our Medical-Legal Partnership project is expanding across the state. Here is a partial list of our current partnerships:

Statewide
• North Carolina Cancer Hospital
• North Carolina Community Health Center Association
• UNC Children’s, Transitions Care Clinic
Regional
• FirstHealth of the Carolinas
Charlotte
• Atrium Health